There was a lot of action in 2021 in enterprise M&A — once totaled, my top 10 deals came in at just under $121 billion. And the biggest enterprise deal of the year by far — Oracle’s bid to buy Cerner — happened as I was writing this post. The final tally doesn’t include what
Earlier this month, Craig McLuckie, the co-founder of the Kubernetes project during his time at Google and now the VP of R&D at VMware (after selling his startup Heptio to the company), was named the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cloud Foundry Foundation. He succeeds VMware’s Paul Fazzone, who was named chairman
When we penned the intro for this piece last year, little did we know that — in many ways — we’d still be deep in it by the time 2021’s feature rolled around. Amid another holiday season marred by a new variant, seemingly the more things change — well, you get the picture. Surprisingly, however,
Over the last two years, New Zealand’s startup scene has seen record venture and early-stage investment. Despite the pandemic, 2020 saw $158 million invested into 108 deals, representing the third year in a row of over $100 million in investment in startups. According to a PwC report, 2020 was also the third year of more
Harman International Chair and former Samsung President and Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn joins Emily Chang to discuss his new fund on deep tech raising $500M to invest in deep tech, and gives his insights on how big manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are scrambling to power through the global chip shortage and supply chain
Skio, a startup that aims to take the pain out of selling subscriptions for brands on Shopify, has raised $3.7 million in a seed funding round. Kennan Davison, an engineer who previously worked at Hulu and Pinterest, founded the startup in April. He describes Skio as a fintech and an infrastructure company as a pivot
As we get closer to the end of the year, we’re running more stories that look back at topics we examined in depth over the last several months, and several that offer well-informed predictions for the year ahead. This week, Bill Taranto, president of Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, wrote a TechCrunch+ article that explored
Dwana Franklin-Davis Contributor Dwana Franklin-Davis is a lifelong technologist currently serving as the CEO of Reboot Representation, a coalition of tech companies pooling their philanthropic resources to double the number of Black, Latina and Native American women receiving computing degrees by 2025. Ruthe Farmer Contributor Ruthe Farmer is the founder and CEO of the Last
After seven years in the production of electronic gadgets, under his company Imose Technologies, Osayi Izedonmwen took leave to explore an idea that he had toyed with for some time — an edtech startup, Teesas, which now offers video classes and other digital educational material for learners in Nigeria. Teesas, which was launched less than
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s just about Christmas, which means you may be stuck with family at the moment. Regardless of what, if any, holidays you may celebrate, there’s good chance that there are more people around
A TikTok moderator has sued the social media platform and its parent ByteDance over trauma caused by graphic videos, Bloomberg has reported. In a proposed class-action lawsuit, moderator Candie Frazier said that she has screened videos showing violence, school shootings, fatal falls and even cannibalism. “Plaintiff has trouble sleeping and when she does sleep, she
Because of the unpredictable nature of the fashion industry, fashion brands often have to ‘guestimate’ demand for their products, and if they get that demand wrong, they have to deal with the wasted inventory. All too often clothes end up being incinerated unnecessarily, adding to their environmental impact. UK startup Purple Dot has an ecommerce
New Zealand, a country of just under 5 million people, has historically flown under the radar of venture capitalism. A geographically isolated country with a “no worries!” culture and an economy based on raw materials, Aotearoa hasn’t stood out to investors in the Asia-Pacific region, especially not when they could set their sights on larger
Charlie Graham-Brown Contributor Charlie Graham-Brown is the partner and Chief Investments Officer of Seedstars, a Swiss-based group with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. He leads the group’s venture capital fund, Seedstars International, which invests in seed-stage startups across emerging markets. Daniela Moreno Contributor Daniela Moreno is the
Brazilian construction tech startup Ambar announced it has raised a large Series C round: R$204 million, approximately $36 million at today’s mid-market rate. The round was co-led by Brazil-based Echo Capital and Oria Capital, with participation from TPG Capital, Argonautic Ventures, and others. Ambar was created in 2013 with the ambition to leverage technology to
This is a quiet period for marketing: End-of-year campaigns are already underway, teams are on holiday vacations and there’s little to do until after the new year. Setting aside the holiday spirit, this has been a difficult year for growth professionals. Most are still adapting to pandemic-driven changes to consumer habits, but Apple’s new privacy
Jamie Viggiano Contributor Jamie Viggiano is the chief marketing officer at Fuel Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in consumer, SaaS and infrastructure businesses. More posts by this contributor Carve out a place for your brand with a positioning statement Create target customer personas to develop successful growth strategies It’s not enough to identify
Automation Anywhere, which is best known for its robotic process automation (RPA) software, plans to expand the platform. This morning, the company announced that it intends to acquire process discovery startup FortressIQ. The companies did not reveal the purchase price. FortressIQ gives Automation Anywhere this missing process discovery component, which enables AI-fueled software to map
Rick Song Contributor Rick Song is co-founder and CEO of Persona. More posts by this contributor The next era of moderation will be verified It’s time for social media and dating apps to face the music and curb fraud, deception and disinformation on their platforms once and for all. In the beginning, social media and
So-called ‘Deep Tech’ venture capital has been experiencing a wave of interest in the couple last years with several new funds launching. Many are focused on the European market, which has a deep bench (no pun intended) of talent and innovation, thanks in part to its many excellent universities. The latest is Outsized Ventures, a
Berlin-based language learning service Babbel was supposed to IPO on the Frankfurt stock exchange in late September. But only a few days before the initial listing the company pulled the plug with an eye on the developing Evergrande debt crisis that made the global stock markets very nervous. It has yet to announce a new
Calibrate Ventures, a four-year-old early-stage venture capital firm backing startups leveraging artificial intelligence and automation, debuted its second fund, a $97 million vehicle that is about 25% higher than its previous fund. With Calibrate Fund II, the firm has $175 million in assets under management, co-founder and managing partner Jason Schoettler told TechCrunch. The firm
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix said on Wednesday it has received merger clearance from the Chinese antitrust authority for its $9 billion acquisition of Intel Corp’s NAND and SSD (solid-state drive) business, clearing the final hurdle to completion of securing regulatory approval in eight jurisdictions. Last October, the U.S. chip giant and SK Hynix reached the
Some 55 billion parcels are shipped in bubble wrap every year. Plastic bubble wrap is reliant on fossil fuels and 98% of plastic packaging is single-use. You can imagine the adverse environmental impact of all this plastic. The founders of Woola were running an online e-commerce store and saw the packaging problem first-hand. The lack
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: How to maneuver the
Amazon is seeking Indian antitrust watchdog’s approval to buy Catamaran Ventures’ stake in Prione, which operates one of the largest sellers on the e-commerce platform, months after the two firms said they won’t renew their joint venture after May next year. The announcement comes as a surprise as Catamaran owns 76% stake in Prione. Amazon
Shravan Kumar Alavilli Contributor If human societies do nothing, in just a few decades, the planet could warm to levels it hasn’t reached in at least 34 million years, leading to more melting glaciers and floods than ever before — as well as the dire effect of urban heat waves. In 2021, in the U.S.
Ocurate, a startup using artificial intelligence to predict customer lifetime value for e-commerce businesses, took in an oversubscribed seed round of $3.5 million. Backers in the round include 8-Bit Capital, DCF Capital, Data Community Fund, AIX Ventures, Italmobiliare, Streamlined Ventures and some individual strategic angel investors like Adam Metzger and Mazen Al-Jubeir. Tobi Konitzer, founder
German on-demand delivery giant Delivery Hero is pulling its food delivery service out of Germany again. At the same time it has announced it will exit the Japanese market, by divesting Foodpanda Japan, starting in Q1 next year. In a statement accompanying the pre-Christmas exit news, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Niklas Östberg, said: “Scaling
As nostalgia goes, the Fisher-Price Chatter phone doesn’t disappoint. The classic retro kids toy was given a modern revamp for the holiday season with the new release for adults which, unlike the original toy designed for kids, can make and receive calls over Bluetooth using a nearby smartphone. The Chatter — despite a working rotary